When hospitals become Covid-19 clusters

The thinning ranks of doctors and nurses will put the country’s already-strained healthcare infrastructure even further and affect our ability to fight the epidemic. Healthcare workers also risk spreading the coronavirus among other patients.

ETHealthWorld

April 07, 2020, 08:39 IST

In Mumbai: The Wockhardt Hospital in Mumbai has been declared a containment zone after 26 nurses and three doctors tested positive for Covid-19 over a week. That means nobody can enter or leave the hospital till everyone in it tests negative twice consecutively. A 70-year-old heart attack patient is said to be the source of the infection. New admissions were stopped and the Outpatient Department (OPD) was closed at the Jaslok Hospital on Wednesday after at least one of its staff tested positive for coronavirus.

In Delhi: Hospitals have becomeCovid-19 clusters in the capital too, with at least 14 healthcare workers testing positive for the virus. Four Covid-19 cases among healthcare workers — one doctor and three nurses — was confirmed by Delhi State Cancer Institute last week. The hospital’s OPD has been shut down and nearly 45 cancer patients are being shifted to a private hospital. At Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, another major hospital, 108 staff members were advised quarantine on Saturday after two patients who visited the hospital were confirmed as Covid-19 positive cases. At least a dozen staff at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have been advised self-quarantine after a doctor tested positive. Two doctors at Safdarjung Hospital were also confirmed positive for Covid-19 and at least 50 healthcare workers have been advised to self-quarantine.

In Pune, at least 92 staff members, including several doctors, of the DY Patil Hospital have been quarantined after an accident victim, who was being treated at the facility, tested positive for coronavirus

Elsewhere: More than 50 healthcare workers have tested positive for Covid-19 across the country. Over 100 doctors and nurses have died combating coronavirus across the world. In Spain, where healthcare workers had released videos of using garbage bags as protective clothing, more than 15,000 are sick or under self-isolation. Thousands more are out of action across Europe and the US due to the virus. Out of the 8,098 cases during the SARS outbreak in 2002, health workers accounted for 1,707 (21%) cases.

The problem: The thinning ranks of doctors and nurses will put the country’s already-strained healthcare infrastructure even further and affect our ability to fight the epidemic. Healthcare workers also risk spreading the coronavirus among other patients. Though the Centre says that it has made available 4.6 lakh personal protective equipment and over 25 lakh masks to states, much more needs to be done to reduce the needless burden on the healthcare infrastructure.

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